APWU Challenges USPS Plan To Transfer Time & Attendance Work

The APWU is challenging a Postal Service decision to transfer duties of Time and Attendance Control System (TACS) clerks to another bargaining unit.

The USPS notified the APWU [PDF]of the plan to transfer the work currently being performed at District and plants to a Help Desk function located at the Eagan Information Technology/Accounting Service Center facility in Eagan, MN in October 2013.

The Postal Service asserts that the change will result in savings of $16 million per year, but cannot explain how or where this savings will be achieved, Clerk Craft officers said.

APWU representatives met with their USPS counterparts to discuss the proposal on Sept. 11, 2012, and advised management [PDF] that the union fully expects the Postal Service to honor contractual protections for this Clerk Craft work. Union officers pointed out that Article 1.3 of the 2010-2015 Collective Bargaining Agreement now permits employees to “follow their work” to the Eagan IT/ASC. Under previous contracts, the Eagan center was excluded from this process.

In a letter dated Oct. 3, 2012 [PDF], the USPS assured the APWU that work currently performed by TACS clerks that is not transferred to the Eagan Help Desk “will remain bargaining unit work,” but did not respond to the union’s contention that clerks may follow the work.

The field better wake up and start telling HQ that the TACS dept. is needed in their Area. You will be sorry if you don’t say something. Everyone calls our office for advice. Who will you call for info? A PSE? You say that you need us then let HQ know.

I work in a Processing plant in the New Jersey area. HQ is planning to merge us (our letter mail only )into another local plant,,and send our personnel packing..,and to add more insult to injury,,they want to put an existing Priority mail operation,from another locally leased PO building into our to be vacated building..We all hope that the recent buy-out announcement will encourage enough employees to leave and shrink the rolls here in the local district,so that we may continue as Priority Op Staff. If Romney and Ryan don`t get us,maybe Donahoe can be convinced to settle down and stop killing our jobs and processing Network..PS,wake up Obama,,we need your help now…

It,s not only the TACS Clerks it’s every CSRS employee on the rolls. The want to get rid of those people that make $25.00 an hour and use PSE people that make $14.50 and hour with no benifits.
The real shame is that the UNION KNOWS about it and they are just DRAGGING THEIR HEELS!!!
The UNION will FIGHT for our jobs and it will to TALKS and more LETTERS and end the end we will be OUT OF A JOB.

Is any one really surprised at this? I worked in the CFS unit in Billings Montana and Denver decided to take it from us. Now our Montana mail (packages) goes to Denver to be processed then trucked back to Billings. Nothing the PO does makes any business sense. Denver had to hire more CFS Clerks to be able to do Montana’s mail. Now when there is a CFS problem the supervisors are too busy to help and the window clerks have to go into COARS – even though we are not allowed to do so – just to help the poor customer. The post office doesn’t care one bit who is affected by what they do. When we lost our District last year the PMG hired 4 new VP’s. It is a losing battle. The workers lose, and the customers lose and now the TACS people will lose because they DO NOT CARE one bit about you an an individual. You are expendable. Just look at what they are doing. TACS should be a local job and so should CFS. The PO sucks. Can’t wait to retire in Jan, 2013.

At my TACS site we get calls for help or advise our offices many times an hour. We answer those calls within two or three rings. What are people in the field going to do if they have to wait for ten, fifteen or twenty minutes for some to answer there call???
We do so much more than UPPER Management really comprehends.
The Postmaster General and his Buddies need to get there STUFF (s…) together and realize what the real world is about.
They want PSE’s to take over our jobs at HALF THE PAY with little or no beninfits.

I am a TACS clerk and the real people that will suffer for a change like this is the field personnel. They need close personal and individual help on many problems that can only be solved locally. We do so much more TACS work than change pay locations and numbers on a computer screen. There is much research and problem solving and assistance to the field for so many things and I believe any Help desk does not supply that help on a timely basis. There is also the help we give to our own craft employees when they have problems with their checks or need help, such as temporary employees not being hired into the TACS system on a timely basis. It is far more indepth assistance than anyone in HQ who sits at a desk in Organizational Effectiveness ever could imagine. I believe that they need to get rid of “somebody” or they are not doing their job. TACS Clerks are needed at the local level and the field better wake up and write to HQ before it is too late. We have been told that we are the only department that they can count on for an answer when they have a question. Pretty sad when they have to get rid of a department that does so much good for the Postal Service. I wish Organizational Effectiveness would sit with us for a week to see exactly what we do. If they take us away, there will be no one to help with indepth problems the field has encountered. There is no one left to answer questions.

I was a TACS clerk 10 yrs ago – our local jobs were done away with and given to supervisors . We were told we’d get a huge back pay settlement – still waiting but not holding my breath as I am sure nothing was done as usual.

I am a TACS clerk and the real people that will suffer for a change like this is the field personnel. They need close personal and individual help on many problems that can only be solved locally. We do so much more TACS work than change pay locations and numbers on a computer screen. There is much research and problem solving and assistance to the field for so many things and I believe any Help desk does not supply that help on a timely basis. There is also the help we give to our own craft employees when they have problems with their checks or need help, such as temporary employees not being hired into the TACS system on a timely basis. It is far more indepth assistance than anyone in HQ who sits at a desk in Organization Effectiveness ever could imagine. I believe that they need to get rid of “somebody” or they are not doing their job. TACS Clerks are need at the local level and the field better wake up and write to HQ before it is too late. We have been told that we are the only department that they can count on for an answer when they have a question. Pretty sad when they have to get rid of a department that does so much good for the Postal Service.